cycling

The fifth annual Winter Cycling Congress, held February 8–10 in Montréal, brought together 375 participants from nine countries and included dozens of presentations and workshops.

It would be impossible to cover the whole Congress in one blog post, but one way to summarize the progress of winter biking would be with this, only partly tongue-in-cheek, exhortation:

“Take heart, stalwart cyclists – The Suits have arrived!”

While the momentum of all-season cycling has been building slowly for decades, progress has accelerated greatly in the past ten years. One result is that city governments across the northern hemisphere are working not only to add new cycling infrastructure, but to keep the bike lanes cleared and safe through the winter.

The Winter Cycling Congress included presentations by several professional consulting firms who design cycling infrastructure in northern cities, villages and rural areas, addresses by big city mayors and members of Parliament, plus input from maintenance experts with experience in widely varying climates.

Can you ride through the winter? Yes, you can.

While bikes have obvious appeal as healthy, low-energy, sustainable transportation tools, in many countries the bicycle’s positive impact will remain limited if people feel they can’t ride in the winter months. If city planners try to build adequate infrastructure for large numbers of cyclists in summer, but still need to accommodate all residents via alternate transport methods in winter, then our overall transport systems will remain costly and inefficient.

What are the main barriers to wider adoption of winter cycling? First, let’s deal with a common, silly objection: people can’t ride when it’s cold. This is absurd because people happily do many other activities outside in winter: ice skating, hockey, snowboarding and skiing, for example. Furthermore, all preceding generations up until about 100 years ago managed to get around in winter without being chauffeured in heated canisters. Dressing for the weather is not rocket science – our Neanderthal forebears were able to figure it out.

So when the cheap gas and diesel run out and there is no choice but to adapt to a low-energy transport system, humans will once again rise to the challenge of putting on long underwear and warm hats, without considering themselves heroes for doing so.

Today there are planning consultants gathering data in many cities, asking what are the major factors that keep people biking in the winter, and what factors make them stop.

Tony Desnick of Alta Planning discussed the results of an international survey. When respondents were asked why they decided to ride in the winter, the most common response was “I started biking and I didn’t want to stop.” (That certainly rang true with me. When I started riding a bike in Toronto in the summer of 1979, I had no expectation of riding all year. But as the months rolled by I liked biking more and more. Soon a whole winter had gone by – and now it’s 38 winters.)

When summer-only cyclists were asked “What will take you off your bike?” sixty per cent cited poorly maintained infrastructure, said Desnick.

While cities around the world are learning that provision of protected bike lanes results in immediate boosts in cycling, winter cities are also learning that a substantial share of cyclists will happily ride through the winter, as long as bike lanes are maintained.

Thus cities such as Minneapolis and Montréal now regularly clear at least some bike lanes promptly after snowfalls, with bike-lane plows going out even before most streets are cleared.

The downtown Montréal neighbourhood of Villeray is home to many cyclists, and now has a protected, well maintained bikeway on Rue Boyer, shown at right. (Click image for larger view)

The leader in taking care of winter cycling facilities is the small city of Oulu, Finland, which hosted the first Winter Cycling Congress in 2013. Though the city is just 150 km south of the Arctic Circle, about 42% of its 200,000 residents keep cycling through the winter, said Winter Cycling Federation vice-president Pekka Tahkola.

The steadily cold winter actually makes cycling and path-maintenance easy, said Tahkola. Maintenance crews leave a thin layer of snow on the paths, this quickly becomes well packed, and cyclists have good traction even without using studded tires. With few thaw-freeze episodes, there is no reason to use road salt so paths and bikes stay clean.

Most temperate-zone cities face tougher challenges, exemplified by the freezing rain which turned to slush and then bumpy ice throughout Montréal during the conference – conditions that are increasingly common due to global warming.

Yet federal politicians, municipal staff, and planning firms from cities such as Calgary, Winnipeg and Copenhagen are helping to ensure that bike infrastructure is not forgotten when winter maintenance programs are designed – and winter ridership is increasing as a result.

Though city governments and planners play a crucial role in these efforts, often it is the activism of determined cyclists which prompts action. Becca Wolfson of the Boston Cyclists Union told the story of the city staffer who wrote that cyclists who want to bike in winter “are living in the wrong city”, and they only represent “.05% of the people” anyway. The response was a well organized campaign on Twitter, with pictures of the winter bike commuters holding signs saying “I am the .05%” or simply “#WinterBiker”. This year Boston is making it a high priority to clear major bikeways of snow.

Nadezda Zherebina discusses the growth of cycling in Russia which has resulted in regular bicycle parades in Moscow, including one in January 2017 when the temperature was –28°C. At the conclusion of the conference, it was announced that Moscow will host the 2018 Winter Cycling Congress. (Photo by Anne Williams, courtesy of Winter Cycling Congress Facebook page).

From downtown cores to the suburbs and beyond

Nor have winter bike activities been confined to major cities. Darnel Harris discussed a program to boost cycling in Toronto’s far-flung suburbs. These areas now tend to have lower housing costs than downtown, and are home to many people who can’t afford either condos or cars. Yet these areas also present major barriers to mobility and accessibility, with high-speed arterial roads, infrequent buses, and schools and stores that are too far from homes for walking to be a practical mode of transport. Among these communities, Harris said, cargo bikes have a particular appeal.

Other presentations dealt with a state-funded program to design biking infrastructure in rural Montana, and a project to connect two small villages in Finland with a safe and attractive bikeway.

Thank God It’s Friday!

But enough of traffic statistics and commuting modal share trends. Some of us also bike in the winter for pure fun, and the week ended with a special treat.

Though the conference officially closed at noon on Friday, about 25 lucky souls from at least five countries took a bus out of town to the great cycling facilities in Bromont. Here we were fitted with fat bikes before heading out on the snow-covered trails. Though we bundled up to stay warm in the –15°C temperature and stiff breeze, most of us soon started shedding layers as we pedaled up hills, slid around hairpin curves and dodged trees. As a conference finale, this was hard to beat.

Top photo: Although Montréal’s bike-share system, Bixi, does not operate in winter, conference organizers from Vélo Quebec made arrangements for participants to use Bixis in a variety of outdoor workshops. Here a group leaves the conference venue for a tour of Montréal’s maintained winter bikeways. (Photo by Anne Williams, courtesy of Winter Cycling Congress Facebook page).

Can the current Waverly Road/Highway 401 interchange handle a doubling of truck traffic to and from the St Marys Cement quarry?

Given that the Waterfront Trail shares the road in this section with the St Marys traffic plus the Highway 401 on/off traffic, can the Waterfront Trail be promoted as a safe and healthy recreational feature?

What mitigation measures will St Marys Cement propose to compensate for a large increase in heavy truck traffic which will affect commuters as well as recreational cyclists?

These are key questions raised by the Project Description for the Bowmanville Expansion Project.

The Project Description says that the aggregate will be moved “using existing road, rail and/or dock infrastructure”. But at the project’s Public Information Centre in Bowmanville on December 5, St Marys representative David Hanratty made clear that for the foreseeable future, the aggregate would go out by truck, not by ship or rail, primarily to customers on the east side of the Greater Toronto Area.

It is simply not cost-effective to load the aggregate onto ship, then load it again onto trucks enroute to construction projects, Hanratty said. Rail freight is now too expensive for a low-cost product like limestone aggregate, he added, in addition to the problem of needing to reload the material onto trucks for the “last mile” in any case.

So the 4,000,000 tonnes of limestone will all go out by truck. At 20 tonnes per truck, that would mean 200,000 truckloads per year, or 770 truckloads per day if the aggregate is hauled five days/week.

(Put another way, truck traffic in and out of St Marys is likely to more than double. While the current quarry extracts a similar amount of limestone as the underground expansion is projected to add, much of the current output is in the form of cement clinkers shipped out on the Capt. Henry Jackman. With a capacity of 30,000 tonnes, this ship can carry the equivalent of 1500 20-tonne truckloads each time it leaves port. But the aggregate shipments from the new underground mine will all go by truck.)

The timing of shipments to market will also affect traffic volume. If buyers are not prepared to stockpile aggregate through the winter, the hauling might be concentrated in the summer construction season – meaning the impact on the Waverly Road/Highway 401 interchange, and on the Waterfront Trail, could be especially heavy during summer.

The current Highway 401 on- and off-ramps in this location are far from ideal. On the south side, traffic coming off the eastbound 401 has to get past two stop signs before making it onto Waverly Road. The left turn onto Waverly Road will be more difficult when several hundred more trucks per day are heading north on Waverly.

Traffic getting off the eastbound 401 faces two stop signs before turning onto Waverly Road (red Xs), causing frequent back-ups along the off-ramp. Assuming most of the loads of aggregate from St Marys will go to the eastern GTA, the loaded trucks will travel north along Waverly Road (red arrow) to the 401 westbound ramp, making it more difficult for Bowmanville-bound traffic to turn onto Waverly Road from Energy Drive. The volume of traffic on the eastbound off-ramp will also be increased, due to empty aggregate trucks returning from GTA markets via the eastbound 401. (Image from Google Maps, December 13, 2016)

Perhaps this interchange can be re-engineered to handle the new traffic load. Is St Marys prepared to fund this reconstruction as part of its impact mitigation efforts?

As for the Waterfront Trail, the addition of several hundred more trucks per day to the section of shared Trail/roadway will make the Trail less attractive and less safe. Two changes might be made to mitigate this impact.

First, perhaps the Trail could be rerouted here to eliminate the sharing of congested roadway on Waverly Road and Energy Drive. Ironically, Google Maps currently shows an incorrect routing for the Waterfront Trail as shown below; could this route become reality in the future?

Although the Waterfront Trail is currently routed on Waverly Road and then along Energy Drive (as shown by the red arrows), Google Maps incorrectly shows a routing along the north edge of the St Marys property (the solid blue line). Could this route become reality in the future? (Image from maps.google.ca, December 13, 2016) click for larger view

Second, there is no safe and attractive route between the Waterfront Trail and most of the populated areas of Bowmanville. Cyclists from the north side of the 401 have two choices, both poor, for routes across the 401 to the Waterfront Trail (see Getting across the 401). One of these routes is Waverly Road, which will be more dangerous for cyclists if there is a major increase in truck traffic without an appropriate “complete streets” redesign.

Perhaps St Marys can mitigate the expansion project’s negative impact on the Waterfront Trail by funding a separate walking/cycling overpass or underpass at the 401. Such a routing would be a significant improvement to Bowmanville’s recreational trails, which currently offer no safe connection to the Waterfront Trail.

Top photo: Bumper-to-bumper traffic on off-ramp to Waverly Road from eastbound 401, December 13, 2016

The St Marys Cement Underground Expansion Project envisions extracting 4 million tonnes of limestone each year from a new mine beneath Lake Ontario on the south side of Bowmanville.

To understand the scope of the project and its possible environmental effects, it helps to look at the logistics: how much transport capacity does it take to move 4 million tonnes per year?

St Marys says that the limestone will be shipped out as aggregate “using existing road, rail and/or dock infrastructure.” These three shipment methods have very different environmental effects, and presumably there will be further detail on the likely mix of shipping modes in the Environmental Assessment.

In coming to terms with the quantities involved, however, marine shipping is the easiest to picture. The bulk carrier Capt. Henry Jackman is a frequent visitor to the St Marys dock. It carries up to 30,550 tons of cargo (source: boatnerd.com) or 27,715 tonnes. To haul away 4 million tonnes, the Capt. Henry Jackman (or similar-sized ship) would need to make 144 trips. This would equal about 4 trips per week during an eight-month shipping season.

Since outgoing shipments of aggregate would be in addition to all the current in- and out-going shipments at the St Marys dock, one key question is: how many boatloads of aggregate could be shipped out each year assuming there are no significant changes to the docking infrastructure?

While marine transport is by far the most efficient in terms of fuel consumed per tonne per kilometer, the market for aggregate may not favour bulk port-to-port shipment. If most of the limestone aggregate is destined for construction projects scattered all around the Greater Toronto Area, then trucking will be the most cost-effective shipping method.

Suppose all the aggregate were trucked to market. Using a round figure of 20 tonnes per truck load, the 4 million tonnes would be 200,000 truckloads per year – about 770 loads each day if the hauling is done five days/week, or about 550 loads per day if hauling continues every day of the week.

There is a wide variance in truck capacity, from tri-axle dump trucks, to dump trucks with secondary trailers, to full-length tractor-trailers. However, unless most of the aggregate is sent by some combination of marine transport and rail, there will be hundreds of truckloads per day of aggregate exiting the quarry, in addition to the current shipments of cement.

The connection between the St Marys quarry and the road network is shown on the Google Maps image below.

Drivers who frequently use the Waverly Road/Highway 401 interchange just north of the quarry will attest that traffic frequently backs up at the on/off ramps for eastbound traffic (on the south side of the 401). What effect would a few hundred extra trucks/day have on this traffic?

A major recreational feature, the Waterfront Trail, would also be impacted by the additional traffic. The Waterfront Trail is routed along Waverly Road and Energy Drive just north of the quarry:

Looking west on Waterfront Trail, at junction with Waverly Road.

Users of the Waterfront Trail share the road with traffic entering and exiting the 401 in this interchange:

Looking west from Waverly Road along Energy Drive, with on/off ramps for 401 eastbound traffic.

Truck traffic going north on Waverly Road and County Road 57, or going to the westbound 401, will use the narrow bridge over the 401:

This bridge is part of one of the two current cycling routes between Bowmanville and the Waterfront Trail (see Getting Across the 401). The combination of a narrow bridge with merging and turning traffic on either side of the bridge makes this a dangerous passage for cyclists, even without adding several hundred more heavy trucks each day.

The transport of 4,000,000 tonnes of limestone aggregate may have significant implications re traffic congestion and danger to vulnerable road users. When coupled with the wear and tear on roads and the emissions from diesel engines, the impact of transportation will be an important part of the Environmental Assessment of this project.

Top photo: the Capt. Henry Jackman approaching the St Marys dock, August 2016.

October 1, 2016

The sun was close to the horizon as the eastern reaches of Kelowna came into view far down the slopes. The sky carried both the threat of rain and the promise of a beautiful sunset, depending on which way the clouds might move. And just ahead were the Myra Canyon trestles – eighteen famous wooden bridges which conducted the Kettle Valley Railway trains around the rim of the Myra Canyon, which now make this the most spectacular and most visited section of southern British Columbia’s rail trail system.

Satellite map showing approach to Myra Canyon from the east, and road down to Kelowna at the west end of Myra Canyon.

I still had 37 kilometers to ride if I chose to make it to downtown Kelowna that night. But it was easy to see that a good part of the trip would be downhill.

View from Kettle Valley Rail Trail of eastern outskirts of Kelowna, including airport.

It wasn’t long before I arrived at the eastern trailhead for the Myra Canyon trail – a busy parking lot full of hikers and bikers packing into cars and SUVs for the ride home. As I continued towards the first trestle I noticed that the trail surface here was smooth and well-maintained, and that there were still lots of other bikers and walkers in spite of the late-afternoon hour.

An unfortunate fact is that all eighteen trestles are located in one 18-kilometer stretch of trail, so that this ride seemed to fly by in a flash. Or, a fortunate fact is that all eighteen trestles are located in one 18-kilometer stretch of trail, so that I was able to ride to the trailhead at the far side of the canyon in the last hour of sunlight.

If I lived in the Kelowna area, no doubt I would ride this trail many times. But since I’m unlikely to have the chance to visit more than once, I’m glad to have this slideshow from my ride (accompanied here by an excerpt from “Everybody Slides” by the late great dobro player Mike Auldridge).

Now Kelowna and Okanagan Lake were clearly in view, but there was no way of knowing how easy it might be to find my way to downtown in failing light.

Twilight view of Kelowna from Kettle Valley Rail Trail.

Little White Service Road was my route from the west end of Myra Canyon to Kelowna – and though this is a two-lane road open to cars and trucks it’s a very rough ride. In a little over 4 kilometers before Little White Service Road meets pavement at June Springs Road, you drop over 400 meters at a 9% grade. On smooth pavement with wide-radius curves this grade would mean you could fly along at 50 or 60 kph. But on a rough gravel road with many sharp turns, it means you get off the saddle and put all your weight on the pedals so your legs can act as shock-absorbers, thrust your butt back over the rear wheel to keep balance, and squeeze the brake levers as hard as you can, roughly every five seconds, to keep your speed under control.

But soon enough I was cruising down the pavement through orchard country, sniffing the scent of ripe apples in the moist late evening air.

It was well after dark when I reach the shore of Okanagan Lake and found a motel near Okanagan College. I had a real surprise when I got off my bike: my left ankle was swollen and throbbing and I could hardly walk. Apparently that ankle had suffered some damage when I fell on a rocky section of the Kettle Valley Trail a few hours earlier. But through the past 40 kilometers – the most thrilling 40 kilometers of riding since I crossed the Continental Divide in Glacier National Park – I had been quite oblivious to the detail of a small sprain.

Ah well, I had a first-aid kit in my pack, and now I had the satisfaction of knowing I hadn’t carried that first-aid kit along for nothing. As soon as I wrapped the ankle snugly in an elastic wrap it started to feel better, and most of the pain was gone by morning.

Sunday morning, October 2nd was sunny and calm, and it warmed my heart to know that my bike ride was over, and there was nothing more pressing than exploring the flat neighbourhoods of downtown Kelowna and gazing across the lake at mountains I did not intend to climb.

Looking west across Okanagan Lake from a small waterfront park in Kelowna

Top photo: a view across Myra Canyon from one of the eighteen trestles in this section of the Kettle Valley Rail Trail.

September 30 – October 1, 2016

When I began to plan my trip the Kettle Valley Rail Tail was the prime item on my itinerary, and now that I had arrived at Mile 0 of the trail, I had also decided that the KVRT would be the last leg of my ride.

Having heard from several experienced riders about the trail conditions, and having ridden a good chunk of the adjoining Columbia & Western trail, I was content to travel only a small portion of the 600 kilometers of rail trail in this part of BC.

These trails can be slow going with a fully-loaded touring bike. In addition, for a rider like me who grew up in the prairies, the trails’ frequently constricted field of view, with a wall of new-growth trees on either side, often felt claustrophobic.

But I didn’t want to miss one spectacular stretch of the Kettle Valley Trail just outside of Kelowna, where the trail crosses 18 trestles as it makes its way around the rim of Myra Canyon.

So I set out from Midway – Mile 0 of the Kettle Valley Rail and right on the US/Canada border – on Friday September 30, headed northwest towards Kelowna. The plan was to ride west on BC 3 (the Crowsnest Highway), turn north on BC 33, and switch over to the Kettle Valley Trail soon after.

From Rock Creek north to Carmi, both the Kettle Valley Trail and BC Highway 33 stay close to the Kettle River.

That was the plan, but the wind blew. Not just any wind, but a tail-wind. The day was sunny and warm, I was riding straight north, and the wind was straight out of the south – the best tail-wind I’d had for the whole trip. So I stayed on the pavement until early afternoon, by which time I’d ridden 80 km to Carmi and spotted a roadside restaurant where I could enjoy a late lunch.

Sign marking the former Carmi station and trailhead.

Just north of Carmi the Kettle Valley Rail Trail takes a sharp turn away from the highway, starting the long slow climb up to the rim of Myra Canyon. The sun was still warm as I made my way up this trail, adjusting to the very different pace required to dodge rocks and loose sand after cruising on the highway with the wind at my back all morning.

I stopped to make camp when my odometer read 98 km for the day. I would have liked to make it an even 100, but I had seen very few flat spots big enough to pitch a tent and lay out my air mattress. So when I came to this wide spot on the trail I figured I’d better settle down for the night.

Campsite along Kettle Valley Rail Trail north of Carmi.

The sky had clouded over as the sun sank low, and soon after dark a light rain started. It was the first time on the trip that my tent was tested by steady rain, so I tossed and turned nervously until I was sure no seams were leaking. Once I was confident I would stay dry the patter of soft rain became a perfect lullaby.

After breakfast and coffee in the morning I set off, hoping I would find a water source soon. This countryside was very dry, so when I came to a pond I filled a couple of water bottles just in case I didn’t find anything better. The pond’s resident Castor Canadensis made sure I didn’t forget about the possibility of beaver fever (Giardiasis), and I was glad I had a stove to boil water, plus chemicals to treat the water.

Castor Canadensis

Within the hour I came to a much more convenient water source. The Arlington Lakes campground is right along the trail. The lake water there still needed to be treated to be safe for drinking, but it was much less murky than the water from the beaver pond, and there was a picnic table to sit at while I boiled water and enjoyed a second breakfast.

The campsite was waking up by then and a veritable symphony of internal combustion instruments filled the air. Each resident family appeared to have at least one four-wheel drive pickup, a camping trailer, a four-wheel all-terrain vehicle, a dirt bike, and a gas-powered generator. The crew that built the rail line 110 years ago could only have dreamt of the horsepower that was present in that one campground.

For the rest of the day I rode northwest along the trail, glancing often at the heavy clouds moving around the sky. It was my plan to camp for another night along the trail before riding the Myra Canyon leg and then down the mountain into Kelowna.

This timber retaining wall is all that stands between the trail and a steep upward slope.

Just past Hydraulic Lake, my attention lapsed as I tried to ride through one of the many patches of loose rock and gravel – a spot where it would have been wiser to walk. My front wheel slid out and I went down hard on my left side. As I picked myself up I was pleasantly surprised to find that I hadn’t injured my hand or wrist, and the only really sore spot seemed to be a big bruise on one calf.

One of those frequent but short stretches of the trail where it makes sense to walk rather than ride.

This first fall of the trip might have indicated I was getting tired and should stop for the night. But I could catch glimpses of Kelowna in the distance far below. Heavy clouds still filled half the sky but the sun was shining just ahead, and the first of the Myra Canyon trestles was only a few kilometers away.

The late afternoon light would make for a great view of the Canyon – perhaps better than anything I’d enjoy in the morning – and I might make it down the hill into the city before it got really dark. After one last look at the map, I got back on the bike and headed for Kelowna.

Hydraulic Lake near McCulloch Station

Top photo: the late afternoon sun breaks through the clouds between Carmi and Myra Canyon.

September 27–28, 2016

About 125 years ago gold and copper were discovered in the mountains of southeastern British Columbia and a fury of railroad building ensued. In part this was a simple matter of providing rail access to new mines. But the construction was also motivated by fear of US annexation of this remote territory: Canadians realized that if American companies were the first to lay rails into this area, US expansionism might result in a redrawn border.

The result was a series of ambitious projects which connected new towns – Castlegar, Grand Fords, Midway, Keremos, Osooyos and Pencticton – with the Pacific coast via the Vancouver Victoria & Eastern Railway.

Nearly all the track is gone now, but what remains is an extensive system – roughly 600 km including the many spurs – of rail trails. These trails, including the Columbia & Western and the Kettle Valley rail trails, are now part of the nationwide Trans Canada Trail network.

In planning my trip through this area I learned that trail conditions vary widely, from hard-packed gravel to loose sand to fields of shattered stone that has washed down from blasted rock cuts. Forest fires have destroyed some of the wooden trestles, not all of which have been rebuilt, and some tunnels have caved in. The upshot is that a cyclist planning to bike these trails needs to keep a flexible itinerary.

On September 27 I set out from Mile 0 on the Columbia & Western Rail trail, along the Lower Arrow Lake section of the Columbia River on the outskirts of Castlegar.

My goal was to ride the trail at least as far as the former Paulson Station. (The adjective “former” applies to all stations shown on the above map. There are no longer any settlements or stations, and very few road crossings, along this route.)

At least I wouldn’t face any steep grades. In common with most railways, the Columbia & Western was routed to avoid any grades steeper than about 2%.

Elevation profile of Columbia & Western railway.

Starting at Castlegar and biking west my first 43 kilometers would be uphill – but the steepest grade would be 2.2%. It was slow going – maintaining a speed of 10 kph was hard work – but that was mostly because of the many patches of loose gravel. For the first 20 kilometers the trail hugged the shore of Lower Arrow Lake, and I could only tell that I was going uphill by the fact that the log booms on the lake gradually grew more distant.

By then I had to think about replenishing my water supply, and the only creeks I saw were trickles at the bottom of steep canyons, viewed from trestles far above. Fortunately I passed more than one good spring, tapped by pipes that emerged from rock faces.

A spring water tap beside the Columbia & Western trail.

And traffic? The Trails BC website warns that “You will almost certainly encounter motorized vehicles along the route, particularly ATVs and dirt bikes, which could be travelling at high speeds. Over the years, unregulated motorized use has degraded the trail surface along the Columbia & Western, making many areas quite challenging for hikers and cyclists.” But I met a grand total of two ATVs in 24 hours, plus two other cyclists. I met those two cyclists three times in two days, as they did out-and-back rides from different trailheads.

George and Anne Clark were the only cyclists I met in 60 km – but we met at three different places.

Anne and George came by just after I had replenished my water supply at a spring and I had settled down next to a rail cart to make coffee. Thanks to Anne for snapping the photo below.

It was late afternoon when I reached Bulldog Tunnel – at 912 meters, the longest tunnel in the BC rail trail system. Not only is it long but it is curved, so as you head west there is no “light at the end of the tunnel” for most of the way. I had been told that a recent collapse here had been repaired days before through the installation of new support beams – but still, my pulse sped up just a bit as I mounted a light on my helmet and pedaled into the darkness.

Almost immediately I found I was riding through big puddles, and then through loose rock. A shard of stone bounced up and got caught between my spokes, then made a horrible crunch as it hit the fender. Now each revolution of the wheel made a loud grating noise. What a great place for the first mechanical breakdown of the trip! By the light of my headlamp I couldn’t tell where the noise was coming from or how to fix it – and I wasn’t sure how long my lamp would stay on before the battery weakened. It did help to flip the cable loose on my front brake – I didn’t need brakes inside the tunnel anyway – and then I walked the rest of the way through.

When I emerged into the late afternoon sun I was delighted to find a convenient camp site. The picnic shelter shown below was under construction, and was just a netting of reinforcing rod in a square excavation. But there was an outhouse, a reasonably flat spot beside the trail to pitch my tent on, and a picnic table where I could sit for supper as well as to unload my bike and fix my front wheel.

Campsite at Bulldog Tunnel. The picture at left is from the Columbia & Western Facebook page, showing the new shelter which was built a few days after I passed through.

In the morning after I’d prepared oatmeal and coffee it was time to get some more water, and I knew there was a spring just 900 meters away – back at the other end of the tunnel.

This through-the-tunnel-and-back water-carrying hike was also an opportunity for gadget-play. I rigged a GoPro camera on my helmet, mounted a light high enough to shine over the camera, used another camera to record some sounds, and then tried a time-elapse video of the trip. The light flashed a “battery low” warning about half way through and I had to switch to a lower light setting – but the light didn’t give out. Here’s a glimpse of what it’s like walking through Bulldog Mountain.

My second day on the trail was much easier than the first. I had only 12 kilometers left of the uphill section to Farron Summit.

The downhill stretch from Farron to Paulson was an easy ride, but when I got to the first intersection between the Columbia & Western and the Crowsnest Highway (BC 3) I was ready to get back onto pavement. Much of the paved route was downhill too, and what a difference a paved surface makes! While I had been flying along at the breakneck speed of 18 kph in the loose gravel of the trail, on the highway I soon came to long hills I could coast down at 45 or 50.

First I passed Christina Lake, then I met the Kettle River and followed it downhill to Grand Forks. While I had spent a day and half biking 60 km of trail from Castlegar to Paulson, the 50 km to Grand Forks on the highway took only a couple of hours.

Christina Lake, viewed from BC 3, the Crowsnest Highway.

Top photo: log booms in the Lower Arrow Lake section of the Columbia River, seen from the Columbia & Western Rail Trail.

September 25–26, 2016

When I biked over the Going To The Sun road in Glacier National Park at the beginning of my journey, I thought I had faced the most difficult climb of the trip. My first day on the Crowsnest Highway showed that I really should do better research.

Leaving Creston, BC, I knew I had about an 85 km to ride to get to Salmo, and I knew there would be a mountain pass along the route. But the mapping app on my iPad didn’t show elevation profiles, and the first couple of hours of riding just contributed to complacency.

First I crossed the wide Kootenay River valley, then started climbing at an easy pace. I cruised for a long time thinking, “this road is great, it’s almost like a rail trail! With such a gentle incline, I feel like I could climb all day!” But after about 25 kilometers of this easy climb it wasn’t feeling so easy any more.

With the benefit of hindsight and a better mapping app, I now realize that I had picked a very bad time to get tired.

The elevation profile shows a 1238 meter (4061 feet) gain in elevation, from the Kootenay River up to the point where the road reaches its highest point and starts down the other side. This is almost twice the elevation gain I had struggled with on the visually spectacular but comparatively gentle Going To The Sun road.

But the biggest part of this climb happens in the final 12 kilometers – that is, after the point at which I realized I was getting tired.

Final section of climb to Kootenay Pass, east side.

While I had climbed 590 meters over 25 kilometers, I had to finish by climbing 648 meters over 12 kilometers. The air temperature dropped from about 7°C at valley bottom in the morning, to about 4°C near the pass. There was no rain or sleet, nor was there any sunshine, just a damp breeze that seemed to cut right through my jacket, rain pants, wool jersey and tights, which were damp with sweat long before I stopped climbing.

The road curved endlessly, never affording a long view forward or backward, so I couldn’t gain any sense of how far up I had come or how far I still needed to go. Each .1 km – the smallest increment on my odometer – marked a pathetic, hard-won victory. At last I had to admit that as I was only biking at 6 kph, and even then stopping for a rest at least twice per kilometer, I might as well get off and walk.

Pushing the loaded bike up the hill was slower than pedaling it, but barely – I managed 5 kph as a pedestrian. “A change is as good as a rest”, some say – and after walking for a kilometer I was able to get back on and pedal with slightly renewed vigour.

Shortly after getting back on the bike I rounded an embankment and came to the most wonderful sign a weary cyclist will see: “Check your brakes, 600 m”. It was just over half a kilometer to the top! So it turned out that the kilometer I had walked was the second-to-last kilometer in the climb.

There is a small pond at the pass, and a cook-shelter at a trailhead for Stag Leap Provincial Park, whose primary role is to provide sanctuary for the dwindling numbers of woodland caribou. I sat down just long enough to eat an energy-rich snack, pull out the last layer of wool clothing from my panniers and put that on underneath my rain suit. And then I pushed off, hoping I’d get no colder than I already felt.

Just a couple of kilometers down, I rounded a curve to see a small group of Bighorn Sheep standing in the middle of the road. They jumped a concrete barrier and started climbing an almost-vertical rock face as I rolled by. Though I briefly considered stopping, struggling with my over-tight gloves, getting my camera out, and trying to get some pictures, that would have meant going back uphill a little ways. No way was I reversing course! – it could have been the Sasquatch scrambling up that cliff, and still I wouldn’t have gone back up the hill to take a photograph.

Thirty kilometers later when I reached the valley floor it was sunny and 18°C. I was still wearing three long-sleeved wool shirts and two pairs of wool tights under a full rain suit, and I was still cold. It was only after I had pedaled for a half hour on level ground, at the outskirts of Salmo, that I took off my wool hat, gloves, and rain suit.

Finding a warm and cozy shelter was first priority, and the Reno Motel more than fit the bill. The 1950s-era motel looked like it had never been renovated – just like me!

The room had a fridge, microwave, and original art on the walls. The guest services booklet in my room also had a long writeup of the Kootenay Pass from a cyclist’s perspective – including the news that I could have avoided the climb altogether by going north from Creston and taking a free ferry across Kootenay Lake.

But it was pure luxury to soak in the deep claw-foot bathtub, and my dinner of tinned soup was special, served in such a cheerful bowl.

Fine dining at the Reno Motel.

September 26, 2016

While the Kootenay Pass nearly finished me off, the next day’s climb over Bombi Summit seemed almost too easy to be true.

About halfway between Salmo and Castlegar, the Bombi Summit is at 1214 meters above sea level (compared to the Kootenay Pass at 1775 meters). As I pedaled uphill I didn’t realize my climb would only be half as big as the previous day’s climb, and it was a beautiful warm sunny day besides. When I saw the “check your brakes, 600 meters” sign I couldn’t believe I was really at the top of the hill already – perhaps, I feared, I’d go down a short steep hill and then start climbing all over again.

Yet the “Steep Grades Ahead” showed 7 km of steady downhill, so I had finished the climb before breaking into a serious sweat. This mountain riding can be a breeze!

A sign detailed the proper procedures for truckers:

I couldn’t help but notice the omission of any procedures for bicyclists, so I took the liberty of adding a few lines:

Check Your Brakes sign including procedures for cyclists.

The road downhill was smooth and wide, and it wasn’t long before Castlegar appeared in the distance. By early afternoon I crossed the Kootenay River near its juncture with the Columbia and rolled through downtown Castlegar.

That night I was hosted by a Warmshowers member just across the Columbia from Castlegar. Richard proved to be an exceptionally knowledgeable cyclist as well as a great gardener and cook. He shared lots of information about the Columbia & Western and Kettle Valley rail trails, which were next on my itinerary. To our delight we were also joined that night by a Spanish cyclist who was nearing the end of a cross-Canada bike ride.

September 24, 2016

Thanks to the generosity of my hosts from Warmshowers.org, on my single night in Idaho I met several cycling enthusiasts in what was clearly a very warm and friendly community of outdoor enthusiasts, and they happily shared some of their favourite biking routes.

So when I left Bonners Ferry, Idaho on a sunny Saturday morning, I headed not to the highway but to a meandering gravel road that would take me through the lowlands of the Kootenai River valley.

This road led me first around the southern and western edges of the Kootenai National Wildlife Refuge, passing wheat fields, cattle pastures and a large hops farm, before winding back to the east across the Kootenai River, where I would turn onto the highway north to Canada. Since the major highway route from Bonners Ferry to my next stop, Creston, BC was less than 60 kilometers, my more circuitous route would round out an easy day by adding another 16 km.

A small creek flows towards the Kootenai at the southwest corner of Kootenai National Wildlife Refuge.

Wheat farm west of Bonners Ferry, Idaho.

The traffic was sparse but sometimes it was heavy.

Extensive wetlands make this an important area for migrating birds.

Just north of the Kootenai National Wildlife Refuge is Budweiser Loop, the site of an intensive hops operation owned by Anheuser-Busch.

Kootenai Valley hops farm owned by Anheuser-Busch.

Where the valley-bottom road crosses the Kootenai River before heading uphill to the highway, I stopped for an early-afternoon picnic lunch.

Kootenai River north of Bonners Ferry, Idaho

My afternoon’s itinerary included riding the entire length of Idaho State Highway 1 – all 20 km of it. That would take me to the US/Canada border, where the Kootenai River mysteriously transforms into another stream with a different name. (Don’t ask me y.)

Although I would return to this spell-shifting river several times over the next few days, my brief rest on the flatlands was quickly drawing to a close. When I pedaled in to Creston that afternoon, there were just 500 meters of road between me and my destination for the night – and that half a kilometer was on a 10% uphill grade.

Sept 20 – 23, 2016

How do you go from West Glacier to Idaho? Just get on US 2 and ride west – you can’t miss it.

Why did I choose US 2? For two reasons of sentiment, and one issue of practicality. First, while I could have turned more directly north into Canada, I preferred to roll my wheels in the great state of Idaho for at least a few hours. You see, I’ve been religiously obeying the Idaho stop law for many years, so Idaho is a bit of a personal Mecca.

Second, I wanted to get a new case for my GoPro camera, and that meant getting to a big town with major retailers. When I had strapped my GoPro onto my helmet on the Going To The Sun road, I noticed the case was cracked right at the mounting clip and it was in danger of flying off in the wind. Luckily that didn’t happen, but I didn’t want to push my luck. Kalispell (population 22,000) would be the largest city on my route for weeks, so I set my course for Kalispell.

Finally, my first full-time summer job had been in construction on US Highway 2 in 1970. I worked in a gravel quarry just outside of Bemidji in northern Minnesota – a long way from Montana. At fifteen I was too young for a driver’s license, and I had hitchhiked to work each morning along Highway 2. This strand of pavement represented a connection of sorts with that long-ago me in a faraway place, so when I looked at the map that one meandering line had more appeal than the others.

Google map of US Highway 2 through western Montana

In reality, US Highway 2 from West Glacier to Kalispell was anything but romantic. Mile after mile the road was lined with fast-food restaurants, motels, car dealers, and the other standards of ex-urban sprawl that characterize the outskirts of small US cities across the country. The main local twist on this theme was a liberal sprinkling of shops advertising wild huckleberries, but they all seemed to offer the same array of over-sugared confections: huckleberry syrup, huckleberry jam, huckleberry preserves, huckleberry pie, huckleberry muffins, huckleberry candy. I had nearly given up on actually tasting a real huckleberry when I came across a health food store which sold small bags of pure frozen huckleberries. At another time of year that would have been difficult food to manage on a bike tour, but I guessed that in the fall I could pack the fruit in a little plastic tub, eat the berries as they thawed, and enjoy a delicious healthy addition to each meal for a couple of days.

There was one memorable tourist attraction along the route, however. The Ten Commandments theme park is a circle of billboards around a small gravel parking lot right beside the highway. Each of the Ten Commandments is illustrated with contemporary imagery. The Commandments are interspersed with other bill boards that tie the biblical verses to phrases in the US Constitution, as if the white aristocratic slave-owners who penned the Constitution were the direct successors to Moses. American exceptionalism aside, I found in one sign a very pointed message to travelers of my ilk: “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s ox, nor thy neighbour’s ass.”

On this warm sunny morning, coveting my neighbour’s ox was a thought-crime easily avoided – but the day before, struggling through the sleet up to Logan Pass, either my neighbour’s ox or my neighbour’s ass would have proven a grievous temptation.

This stretch of road didn’t offer an attractive place to sit down for a quick picnic lunch until I got to the Glacier Park International Airport. The turnoff was marked with the little bit of “nature garnish” which typically signifies “a large tract of formerly natural landscape which has been flattened and paved”. For my purposes, though, this looked like a suitable roadside rest, a place to sit down in the sun with my maps while I enjoyed a meal of rolled oats, yogurt and huckleberries.

I sprawled out on the soft grass, pulled out maps and bags of food, started mixing up lunch – and a loud rhythmic “whoosh” began, followed by sudden showers. The automatic sprinklers had ticked on! I scrambled to fold up papers, cover food, put on shoes, and scamper to a safe distance with my bags. I should have known that this lush manicured oasis did not grow just on the rain God sent from the skies!

The artificial deluge only last a couple of minutes but the grass was soaked, so I had to be content with eating lunch from a perch on the dry concrete wall.

Leaving Kalispell the next morning, riding away from the major tourism attractions, the trappings of suburbia dwindled more quickly. I was also pleased to find a just-constructed, separated bicycle path running alongside the highway. The path was so new, in fact, that they were still backfilling the edges of the asphalt pavement with gravel, and I had to dodge “path closed” signs in a few places. The separated bike lane carried on for almost 20 kilometers, and by then Highway 2 was winding through a long stretch of sparsely populated country.

For the next couple of days I passed just a few towns or small villages, passed just a few gas station/convenience store combos, along with one lakeside resort lodge. Logging trucks were the main component of traffic, but that traffic was thin, so most of the time I biked in silence.

Nearly all of this roadway had paved shoulders of adequate width to bike on when the occasional logging truck roared by. With few exceptions the hills were gentle and reasonably short. For the most part, biking through western Montana was a pleasant, meditative, if unremarkable process.

On September 22 I took just one photo (above) but I could have taken a hundred that looked pretty much the same. That morning a light westerly wind had blown in a fine flowing mist, which was predicted to clear up soon but instead hung around until mid-afternoon. I again reflected on Bill Streever’s explanation of the wind seeking equilibrium between pressure zones. On this day the wind seemed determined to enforce a different equilibrium. As I pedaled along in my rain suit I gradually got wet, as much from perspiration as from precipitation. After an hour or so of fairly stiff riding I should have worked up some heat, but the headwind gradually picked up and the moving stream of 10°C air kept me just on the shivering side of comfortable. I took no break longer than a 10-minute snack break, and then picked up the pace in an attempt to get warm, but the wind simply adjusted strength to keep my temperature in a chilly equilibrium. Arriving in metropolitan Libby, Montana that afternoon, I found I had ridden 96 km in just over 5 hours – a brisk pace for me, and enough to call it a day’s work.

September 19, 2016

I’m biking west on the Going To The Sun road, but the sun appears to be taking a different route. I have no idea if I can actually make it up to the Continental Divide at Logan Pass.

It’s 27 kilometers from my campsite to that high point on the road. For most of that distance I’ll hug the shoreline of St. Mary Lake, so I can expect the road to be more or less level. After that, the road climbs 650 meters (2100 feet) in 10 kilometers of 6.5% grade.

Map of eastern section of Going to The Sun road. click map for larger view

While there is spotty sunshine along the lakeshore, the sky to the west is ominous:

Looking west along St. Mary Lake, Sept 19, 2016

The wind is cold and blowing out of the west so I put my head down and concentrate on making steady progress without working up too much of a sweat. I try not to look very far ahead, but each time I do the snowy peaks have come a little bit closer.

Eventually the road veers away from the lake shore and starts heading uphill. At least, my legs complain as if we’re going uphill. This is one of many times on the trip when, surrounded by towering slopes with no level reference point in sight, I can’t really see whether the road is sloping uphill or downhill. On several stretches the road appears to be level but I’m pedaling hard just to keep moving – am I simply fatigued from battling the wind? Are my tires going flat? (Nope.) Perhaps, I tell myself, the problem is that I should have done this ride before I got to be sixty-one-and-three-quarters years old … maybe even before I was sixty, or before I was fifty ….

At last I reach Siyeh Bend where I stop for a snack. I pull out my map and see that I have covered nearly all of the distance between the campground and Logan Pass. But what encourages me most is a glance back to the east at the route I’ve just traversed.

The valley I’ve climbed out of looks almost dizzyingly deep, and I break into a big smile at the thought that I must already be much of the way up to Logan Pass. On cue, as if to say “wipe that silly grin off your face”, a shower of sleet blows in, turning the road white in the time it takes to put on my rain pants and full-fingered gloves.

The sleet proves to be intermittent but the views get ever more spectacular the closer I get to Logan Pass.

And believe me, I spend a lot of time admiring the view! While my legs feel strong enough to keep moving, I gasp for oxygen in the thinner air – just a few pedal cycles leave me breathless. Luckily there are pull-outs along the road something like every 100 meters on the last few kilometers up to the pass, and I think I stopped at most of them.

Finally the visitor center comes into view and I manage to pedal the last few hundred meters without stopping. I stay just long enough to put on another layer of wool underneath my rain suit for the chilly ride down. I don’t want to rest long enough to let my muscles get cold, but I do stop for the obligatory photo in front of the Logan Pass sign, and another visitor snaps a shot with my camera.

That night when I download the photos, I’m surprised to find that there’s another cyclist in the picture, in the background at right. This was the only other cyclist I saw that day. He had intended to ride up to the Pass from the west, but he decided the route looked too scary so he hitched a ride up with his bike. When we chatted in the visitor center he was buying another layer of clothing, while debating whether he should try the ride downhill.

I didn’t see him depart, but just after I started downhill myself, he was walking his bike back up to the top. I guess that’s understandable – I mean, this guy had some serious miles on him! Judging by his unruly white beard and drastically receding hairline, he looked to be not a day under 62!

But he missed a great ride. The next 35 kilometers were downhill all the way to Lake MacDonald. After I’d gone far enough to get out of the rain and sleet, I put on my helmet camera and filmed about a half hour of the descent. These excerpts from that ride, set to “Gearheads” by Joey Defrancesco and Danny Gatton, bring to mind the joy I felt all the way down. This is dedicated to all of us who are well and truly “over the hill”.